Wednesday, January 14, 2009

walking on hot plates and coals....

This week is the hottest week of Australian summer since... well they don't even know when. I am finding this quite amusing as all I spend my life doing is sweating out the water which I just drank 30 mins before. It is uncomfortable, irritating and most definitely not productive. I am a sort of determined person, I hate laziness, hate confusion and desire peace- therefore this weather is disarming me as I have to do everything when it gets cooler in the evenings and also make sure that if I sit down I don't fall asleep because of my temperature rising. In my frustrations at the climate I decided to visit my friend who has constant air con in her house and thought- yeah I should leave at 7pm the sun is down and things must have changed. I was cool for 30 mins as I returned to my home and then my body got ahold of the climate again. STINKIN'!!! 

In thinking about life these few days before college begins (+reading a great book called irresistible revolution) I think that God is showing me restlessness with heat and teaching me, it's annoying! As I read about the annoyance that one young person got ahold of, this frustration is changing the world- one bit at a time. I wonder if my annoyance with something moves me to change? It is those people of restlessness that can and do change things, am i one of them? I think we could all get restless. We just don't. No wonder the New Covenant Church talked about comfort being our worst enemy. I pray that the restlessness that I am forced to submit to because of the weather is that same restlessness that moves me to change the Word. That I don't just visit comfort and think I can live there, but return with that same scream inside "CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGE SOMETHINGGGGGGGGGG!"

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

winners!!

A few days ago- before Christmas I had a call from someone who claimed to be from my bank. I just answered and gave very brief conversation as honestly I thought what she was saying was just too good to be true. She said I had won something, ME??? I never win anything, in fact I feel sometimes like inside I don't want to get involved with be a winner, it calls for more more more and it's not something I am prepared to think about too much- marketing and advertising does enough of that for us. So I just said yes, "I am ashley- you can send that." I let it slide, not thinking it was true, then a few days ago I got a piece of paper in the post saying I had missed picking up a package, I thought it was for my friend Andrea who has been moving around a bit and not certain of address for her family to send Christmas gifts. Anyway- I walked aimlessly to pick up my friends package the other day, totally wrong mindset but I was thinking, here am I again- doing something for someone else in the sweltering heat and I'm not even going to benefit from it. (honesty is the bet policy!) Anyway, it was the 2nd of january when I first went and the post office had conveniently gone on holiday longer than the rest of us are allowed. I shrugged my shoulders and determined to get a coffee- I wasn't wasting my ten minute walk!! So today I roped my friend Andrea to pick up the package with me so I wouldn't have to carry her stuff all the way home and break my back in the process, but she said she didn't know of any packages coming, neither did I as my mum is the only one sends them!! We arrived and as I signed the dotted line my post office friend handed me an envelop- Inside I was like... ,"what just another piece of stinking mail that could have been left in the post box!!" Then I saw the logo for my bank and remembered the phone call, opened it in a dash and laying inside a mastercard gift card with 100 dollars of spending, it's not a credit card- just this thing mastercard brought out recently, kind of like a gift card- but you can use it anywhere for anything. So right now I feel reasonably blessed and confused. I don't deserve money, I didn't earn it? I didn't do anything to receive it, didn't pay for it, couldn't muster to think of what to even do with it. In pondering who I should give it to- send it to-just what to do I am stuck with a new revelation of Grace. I didn't work for it, didn't pay for it, but yet I have been given this gift. Same with Salvation, what did I do to deserve this?  I have no clue what to do but think about it in the respect of why do I have this? I wonder if people think the same thing about Christianity when we offer it. Oh yeah- it's just another gimmick,too good to be true. You see, we are so used to thinking that we are losers, inside we hope that we are winners- but why would we ever admit it? So when Christianity arrives we refuse, ignore and brandish it as a tele-sales person trying to get your money.Well, that is until it really arrives, really proves its worth, proves its noble efforts and for some arrives in the mail. 

hopelessness

I have come to remember a time in my life when I had no hope. I remember the deepest pain I have ever felt, the darkest depth I have ever sunk and the drowning feeling of every emotion being tears. I remembered this yesterday when I was discussing my salvation experience. It was a startling thing to remember this time, I had gotten so full of Christianity and church that I had forgotten the living Grace that should be so ever present in my everyday walk. I pray I never forget, not to mourn-but to rejoice that this HOPE is like nothing anything else can offer. I pray I don't forget because it means I will be testifying to the Salvation of my soul. I don't want to forget.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

fashionable passions...

I am not sure wether it is just me, but has anybody noticed that our generation are passionate about causes beyond themselves?  I am in love with the time that God has me on earth for, I am overwhelmed at the amount of people I know that would earnestly live and die for a cause, wether it be justice, abortion, poverty, Gaza, Darfur- I am honored to be alive with such individuals that push the boundaries of society and aim to be the best in order to see a change. There is a song written recently in church by a girl that says,

 "I can see a change coming on, it's getting closer as a mighty revolution, we can be the change we want to see Oh we can be the change we want to see"

I believe that we can indeed see the change we want to see, that we can determine to live better than what we have been taught. I see it coming- I see...